Businesses in MEA not delivering on CX, says Dimension Data

Companies are talking about (customer experience) CX, but
not delivering it, according to research from Dimension Data.

The company's annual CX Benchmarking Report found that among
MEA businesses, 90% believe CX is an important competitive differentiator, but
only 10% believe they're delivering experiences that would lead customers to
recommend them to others.

The technology integrator said that the results show a ‘customer
experience disconnect' that could lose them business or even jeopardise their
chances of survival in competitive markets where consumer loyalty can no longer
be taken for granted.

As well as being a competitive differentiator for
businesses, MEA organisations said that CX is also vital for driving loyalty (85%),
revenue growth (73%), and cost reduction (55%).

However, 24% of respondents said that they are dissatisfied
with the customer experience they deliver.

Dimension Data said that companies lack C-level leadership
and strategic alignment on CX. Sixty-eight percent of respondents said customer
experience is not represented at board level, with lower-level management or
multiple managers often assuming responsibility. Furthermore, only 20% said
their organisation takes a fully integrated, centralised approach to customer
experience.

There is currently an ‘artificial reality', where companies
are talking about CX, but not delivering on it, creating a gap between their CX
ambitions and actual CX capabilities. Businesses are looking at several CX
technologies, such as customer analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and
digital integration, but aren't currently able to implement them properly.

Nemo Verbist, Group Executive for Customer Experience at
Dimension Data said: "Customer experience must be higher on the agenda for
every business and the whole organisation should get behind it. Brands
acknowledge how crucial customer experience is, yet so few are making it a
board level responsibility, leaving it siloed or delegating it to individual
managers. There's an artificial reality between organisations' CX ambitions and
making real change that benefits the customer. This disconnect must be resolved.
Brands must make customer experience the priority they say it is."

The research also revealed that many brands are turning to
technology to improve customer experience, but often without a clear strategy.
Some 24% of businesses said the digital solutions they've rolled out (such as
chatbots and AI) don't provide the functionality their customers need, while around
half of respondents (61%) said customer awareness of such technologies is the
biggest barrier to adoption.

Verbist added: "Rolling out a technology only to claim it
doesn't provide the functionality required, or that customers are unaware of
it, isn't a failure of the technology, but a failure of the planning.
Technology can give businesses many powerful tools to improve and support great
customer experience, but it's not simply a case of flicking a switch and it
will work. Brands need to back their investments in technology with investments
in their people, processes, and planning."

Nancy Jamison, Principal Analyst for Customer Care at Frost
& Sullivan, advised that brands should look to address these areas of
disconnect within their business and measure, benchmark and report effectively
to ensure such disconnects don't creep back in.

"Customer experience benchmarking is more important than
ever. Brands need to invest in customer experience but they also need to know that
those investments are paying off. And if they're not, they need to know what to
change. Right now, it looks like brands aren't putting the right kind of focus
on customer experience and, as a result, they're not seeing the outcomes they
want. That's bad for them, and their customers," she said.